RANCHI: Amid trouble mounting on CM Hemant Soren over mining lease allegations, Congress is said to have managed to convince JMM to back its candidate in the upcoming Rajya Sabha (RS) Polls in Jharkhand. JMM insiders informed that Soren, after a long meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at New Delhi on Saturday, has withdrawn his claim over the RS seat in Jharkhand and agreed to back Congress candidate for the same.
The announcement of the candidate from the Congress Party will is likely to take place by late in the evening.
"I won't speak on whether the candidate for Rajya Sabha elections from Jharkhand will be of the Congress or of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), still there’s some time. Discussions are going on regarding it and after that, it'll be announced," CM Hemant Soren told media in New Delhi.
Jharkhand Congress president Rajesh Thakur also asserted that a leader from Jharkhand should go to Rajya Sabha.
"Still, we will follow what our president Sonia Gandhi says. The list will come today and positive talks were held (with JMM) and I can say that there will be a Congress candidate," said Thakur.
Notably, two seats of Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand will go to the polls as the tenures of Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and BJP MP Mahesh Poddar are ending on July 7. The last date for filing nominations is May 31, while the voting will be held on June 10.
In 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, JMM has 30 MLAs and a candidate needs only 27 votes to win. Congress on the other hand has 17 MLAs while BJP has 26 MLAs along with 2 MLAs of AJSU. Besides RJD, CPI (ML) and NCP each having 1 MLA, Jharkhand Assembly also has 2 independent MLAs.
Earlier a week ago, JMM General Secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya, holding a press conference, had announced that it has already been decided ahead of 2019 elections that JMM will field its candidate for all Rajay Sabha seats getting vacant during 2019 and 2024. But, soon after meeting Sonia Gandhi, Soren changed his stand.
In the present scenario, the grand alliance will get one of the two seats and BJP is also likely to get one seat in Rajya Sabha, if it succeeds in bringing the two independent MLAs to its side.
JMM chief Shibu Soren and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Deepak Prakash had won the two seats in 2020. The Congress had fielded Shahzada Anwar as its candidate who lost it for not having adequate numbers.